The Makezine has been around for awhile now, and you can find how-to videos of a lot of the great projects now. This video shows you how to make your own flaming fireball shooter for some magician like pyrotechnic effects. It’s probably a good thing that these videos weren’t around when we were kids, because we would have found all kinds of really, really, bad things to do with this!
I didn’t do a lot with my web sites over Christmas vacation – and that’s unusual for me. I guess I just needed a break from writing posts and articles for the various blogs and domains I own – but you’d think I would have used that time to do something else. Something ‘not computer related’! Did I? Of course not – I spent my time playing online games. Not the ones you would think of, no World of Warcraft for me. For some reason I have a strange affinity for the better flash games. The ones that suck you in like old school Tetris or Galaga – and before you know it you’ve wasted like 2-3 hours. A few years back I used to be addicted to flash card games over at pogo.com. But in December I found this site (that for some reason) I’d never been to before – www.kongregate.com. 2,700 online free flash games, no popups or interstitial ads – no BS, loads of fun!
The first game I was addicted to was Bowhunter Prelude. In this medieval skill based game, basically you use a bow and arrow to kill you enemies. But you have to not only aim your arrow, but how far back you pull determines how far the arrow flies. That’s where the skill comes into play. As you play (if you win) you earn gold and experience, and you can “upgrade” to buy better arrows and weapons of mass destruction! You can easily waste hours and hours and hours on this game! I think I’m now at level 22, but I’m afraid to play again since each level is taking 30-45 minutes+ at this point.
The other game I played a lot at first was Boxhead 2Play. It reminds me a lot of some of the old school FPS arcade games where you just shoot things and get better weapons over time the longer you last. Another game I wasted hours and hours and hours playing.
Do you have favorite online flash games you play and waste hours at? Comment now and let us all know!
I was looking at what was on digg this morning, and came across this list of Top 10 Free Linux Games. I’ve been using Ubuntu on several PC’s for 3-4 years now, and for some reason I had no idea that there were this many free 3D games that were Free for Linux! I guess I spend too much time building web sites and not enough time playing games! I’m definitely going to have to download and install some of these to see how good they are! I want you to check out the list for yourself, but here were the things that surprised me:
America’s Army: Apparently this game is owned by the US Government and has been out since 2002? WTF! It’s a “recruiting tool” to get people to join the army? I guess it’s very popular with 4,500 people playing at any given time.
True Combat Elite: This is a Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory mod? It supports widescreen and letterbox, and has anti-cheat software!
Open Racing Car Simulator: This one really surprised me, mostly because it’s a racing game. Well – a simulator. Nearly all of the games I was familiar with for Linux were First Person Shooters, basically all like Quake copies. This is awesome, a racing game for Linux!
Frets on Fire: Now here’s a game I actually knew about, and played on Windows, but I didn’t know there was a Linux version. Frets on Fire is basically the Open Source version of Guitar Hero, and is just as fun to play! And there are tons of songs for it because it’s open source! This one I’m going to have to put on my Ubuntu box for sure!
Track Mania: is another car game, but this one has crazy short tracks with acrobatics and tricks. Very cool, another driving game for Linux I didn’t know about!
Again, be sure to visit the full list for all 10 games! Read the comments too, because there were lots of games listed there I didn’t know about as well, like Digital Painball 2, Gillo, and Sauerbraten!
Here is something I’ll bet you’ve never seen before, AND you will want! It will probably also make you think. It’s a rotary car door that “disappears” and goes under the vehicle! Yes, I said “under”. Visit the Disappearing Car Door web site, and watch the video and you’ll probaby think just what I did – “why didn’t they do that years ago?”. In the beginning of the video they show a car with a traditional door and the narrator (complete with English accent) says “the modern car is still using a ‘door and hinge’ technology from nearly 100 years ago”, and I thought – that’s completely true! With all our technology automakers have stuck with the “cheapest” way for us enter and exit our vehicles when the advent of technology could make those doors open and close dozens of other ways! This is a REAL cool video to watch, and will make you want one of these real fast! Send this post to all your techie friends, they will love it!
I cannot count the countless hours over the years that I’ve wasted playing stupidly addictive online flash and java games. I swear sometimes that the people that build them implement the same kind of human psychology techniques used in casino slot machines. The games are fun, colorful, they (usually) load pretty quick in a browser, and you can normally play a game in 2-5 minutes or less. Usually, you want to play again (and again, and again) to see if you can do better. Well, leave it to c|Net, they wrote a guide to the 10 Most Addictive Online Flash Games Ever Made. The article is 10 pages, and the reason I wrote this post was because many of the games hit close to home for me, having played them for countless hours. So – I’m going to give you some quick links here to the ones that I enjoyed the most. If you want the full list, just visit that last link I gave to get the full article.
Play Bejeweled
Wow, did I ever waste countless hours on end with this game. Probably one of my all-time favorites. I actually like this game more than I did Tetris back in the day because it seems a bit more fun and fast paced. My favorite type of “puzzle” game.
Play Bowman
This game is a bit more skillful. I can remember spending hours on end with this thing to try and get the perfect shot. Calculating that pefect angle and power combination was extremely difficult.
Play LineRider
This game has a cult following all it’s own. Linerider is insanely addictive, and I’ve previously written many articles about it here on The Smorgasbord.
Play Portal
There is an incredible amount of sophistication built into this game, it reminds me of the old days of the Nintendo.
Yeti Sports
This reminds of a bunch of ‘Snowman’ games I played before. I good one to test your skill level.
There you have it – the 5 online flash or java games I love best (out of c|Net’s list of 10). I’m sure I’m forgetting something that didn’t make their list. Can you remember any that we didn’t? Post your favorite online browser games in the comments now and share with everyone!
**UPDATED May 25th, 2007**
Line Rider has been a worldwide smash. So many videos have been created it’s been unbelievable. However, I just had to update this page to add just one more. This you will not believe, probably mostly because of the sheer amount of time it must’ve taken to do it. Here’s a youTube linerider video – where Line Rider goes through the entire first level of Super Mario Brothers (Bros)…simply unbelievable:
If you haven’t been to this page before, be sure to read it all…but I wanted to tell you about the latest “unofficial update” to Line Rider available at linerider.ca. Here’s a direct download link to the linerider Za Da flash file. This is an unofficial update – because it wasn’t done by the original creator (so I guess you can call it a fork), and they call it “linerider zada”. It features not only an eraser, but also background lines, and a reverse floor function. Now back to the article…
Line Rider is one of the most addictive physics flash games you’ll find. It’s all over the blogs, all over the Internet, all over YouTube – and this is my “Line Rider Roundup”.
If you haven’t played Line Rider yet, visit the Line Rider web site and play a few games. Then, if you can tear yourself away from it’s most addictive nature, you can view some of the best Line Rider video’s on the web. A Line Rider video is when someone plays the Line Rider flash game, and then they take a screen movie as it plays out, and posts it on the web for all to see. Once you see some of the best Line Rider videos on the web, you will either be so amazed that you never want to play the game again – or you’ll want to go right back and try to draw out some of the tricks that you watched. I’ve got the best Line Rider tutorials here too…
You can download the standalone PC desktop version of Line Rider here.
First you have to learn how to create line rider games, and to do that you have to view the line rider tutorial 001. It will teach you how to create landings, jumps, and tricks.
The most important thing in Line Rider is learning how to make consistently straight lines.
Now, watch this tutorial which will teach you how to create ramps in Line Rider.
Here’s another ramp tutorial, it’s listed as the “perfect” ramp tutorial.
Learn how to do jump landings in Line Rider.
Here’s a tutorial on how to make canon jumps in Line Rider:
Some of the best Line Rider tricks are loops, watch this video to learn how to do them.
Look at all the tutorials you can to learn how to do all the basics, but the best way to get good at creating Line Riders videos is to learn from the best ones out there. There are tons and tons and tons of them on YouTube, but here are some of the best Line Rider videos I’ve ever seen on YouTube (and the highest rated I could find):
originally posted: 2007-05-25 14:31:03 -0400
